Divine Determinism Research Articles

Evil and responsibility in the Quran

Abstract The Quran contains numerous references to evil and some of these indicate that the responsibility of some instances of evil, which I call self-inflicted evil, lies with human beings rather than God. This idea of evil leads to an exploration of two interconnected issues in philosophical and theological discussions, moral responsibility and desert, along with the related tension between freedom of action and divine determinism. The article delves into this tension as it appears from the Quran and prevailing standpoints in Islamic theology. I propose that the tension between freedom of action and divine determinism resists a satisfactory reconciliation, which ultimately affects the plausibility of the idea of evil as self-inflicted. I further propose that embracing the contradictions arising from verses expressing freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and those indicating divine determinism, on the other, could be a viable approach for the theologian.

도덕교육과 행복: 교육윤리학의 관점

Ethics, to be genuinely meaningful, must thoroughly elucidate the intricate relationship between knowledge, virtue, and happiness. Educational ethics represents the perspective that this relationship can be justly addressed within a life dedicated to the pursuit of schola, or in simpler terms, a life devoted to education. An ethics that assumes virtue can be determined independently of, or prior to, the practice of moral education, a so-called philosophical ethics, leaves room for an understanding of the relationship between practice and virtue as a means―end relationship, and further imposes on life and education the covert but insistent demand that the realization of ends requires heroic effort. In philosophical ethics, happiness is a question that is always left unanswered. On the other hand, modern virtue ethics rejects the foundation assumed by philosophical ethics, thereby diminishing the significance of happiness to the level of ease and comfort that can be enjoyed in a life without that foundation. If so, the topic of happiness can be a good starting point for exploring the possibility of a genuine ethics that contrasts with philosophical ethics but does not deny the metaphysical foundation. According to Thomas Aquinas, the acquisition of virtue is not something that can be guaranteed by heroic efforts against nature. The highest virtue lies not in the human determination to ‘regulate’ nature, but in the divine determination to ‘let’ nature be the master. The life of teaching and learning knowledge is a journey into a life where nature is master.

Optimism at the End of Time: Jihadists' Struggles

ABSTRACT: Danish Muslims who have returned from jihad in Syria describe the Arab Spring as a miracle—a divine intervention that called upon them to radically change their lives. From one day to the next, they turned towards God and decided to travel to the Middle East to take up arms. According to the interlocutors, the miracle of the Arab Spring made them wake up to find themselves as part of the Muslim umma—the community of the last prophet Mohammed—that is, the prophet of the time of the end—but also to find that maybe the end of time had arrived and that they could choose to join the Great Battle between infidels and believers. Based on long-term fieldwork, this article investigates my interlocutors' practices of struggling in the way of Allah. Arguing against Olivier Roy's central thesis that European jihadists are violent nihilists, I contend that we need to reinstate God and the relation between divine determination and my interlocutors' agency to explain why jihadists act as they do. To understand this relation, I draw on anthropological studies of Islam and Christianity, as well as Agamben's distinction between "the time of the end" (messianism) and "the end of time" (apocalypse). My interlocutors believe that they live in End-times: they know that the world is about to end but they do not know when, and I suggest that it is exactly this gap that their jihadists' practices strive to bridge. Struggling to bring about what they believe is already God-given, I argue that jihadists are optimists, not nihilists.

Memória de vinculação simbólica: a hospitalidade homérica em contexto de hostilidade

The oldest symbolic repository of the West, embodied in the poetic testimony of Homer, concentrated its expressive vitality trying to clarify the enigma of the origins of the world, of men, and of the mysterious forces that somehow animated them. In that retelling of the beginnings of human experience, the Iliad and the Odyssey – and the extensive constellation of mythical works that derive from both – adopting as fundamental the theme of conflict, privileged as their peculiar framework the Trojan War, which the ancient Greek worldview believed to have been the stratagem chosen, by divine determination, to alleviate the excessive weight of the earth, granted to men by the gods as a provisional dwelling. While they sought in Troy to conquer the lot of fortune that they considered their own, the unfortunate mortals, coerced by superior interference, unleashed with their guilt and misery the crises that would plunge them into misfortune, irrevocably assuming their mortality in the face of the eternal bliss of the gods. In this generalised context of conflict, the dynamics of hospitality – based on the fundamental respect for otherness and the promotion of the most basic human rights – seem to consubstantiate in the sphere of human socialisation a basic ethic of peculiar relevance in the hierarchy of Homeric values. Within this peculiar expressive framework, the symbolic re-reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, as the first significant testimonies about the Homeric ethics of hospitality, is imposed.

David F. Ford. The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary

David F. Ford. <i>The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary</i>

Did Amram have a choice? Divine determinism and human choice in 4QVisions of Amram

4QVisions of Amram has often been presented as a text that stands for human choice or some kind of “free choice” theology. The basis for this interpretation is an intriguing passage that most scholars—with a few notable exceptions—read as an invitation to Amram to choose his own position in relation to two beings who are described as the rulers of light and darkness, respectively. Taking its cue from Perrin’s call for a skeptical stance toward the dominant reading, the article reexamines the passage and its context and questions the standard interpretation from various angles. It discusses the surviving text of the passage, finds the usual reconstruction problematic, and proposes a number of other possible reconstructions. It argues that other parts of the composition are not concerned with the notion of human choice. Rather, deterministic thoughts seem to play a more prominent role, especially if 4Q542 (Testament of Qahat) is seen as part of the work, as has been recently proposed. In addition, the article gives a critical evaluation of the suggested resemblance between Visions of Amram and the Avestan Yasna 30. Various aspects of the relationship between human choice and divine determinism are discussed, leading to the conclusion that choice is often less “free” than it may seem to be.

A Comparison of Western Concepts of Free Will and Compatibilism with Islamic and Salafist Determinism

Both theologians and philosophers are concerned about the moral implications of determinism, because it implies that an individual cannot be held responsible for anything he does merely because it happened to him, affected by God or nature as a result of something. This article compares Western concepts of free will and compatibility to Islamic determinism and Salafism, as well as disparities in viewpoints on these philosophical positions. An answer to the question of whether determinism can overcome humanity's inconsistencies, as demonstrated by Western free will and compatibility and Eastern Islamic Salafi views. Determinism (divine determination) has been widely disputed by Muslim scholars and thinkers, just as the discussion over determinism and free will has captured the attention of Western scholars throughout the centuries. Since the classical Islamic era, however, no consensus has been established, and the controversy over the concept of predestination (divine predestination) or predestination has sparked several debates about its relationship to the problem of freedom (freedom) and choice.

Modalities of Argumentation, Scriptural Reasoning, and the Structural Characteristics of Early Islamic Theological Discourse

This examination of three early Islamic theological texts will show that the discursive practices within their respective genera of writing in its nascent stages were scripturally hermeneutical in character. Primary focus was on arguing for the proper understanding of Quranic statements rather than offering extensive arguments based on purely rational grounds. Formal analysis of early writings on divine determinism such as we have selected suggests that Quranic content not only made up the substantive matter of these discourses but even influenced their structure of argumentation and their modes of reasoning. What this study ultimately shows is that the development of Islamic theological thinking and the discursive practices associated with it may have had their impetus in the internal sources of the religion itself and had not merely evolved under foreign influences.

What Does Calvin’s Engagement with Acts Teach Us about God’s Providence?

Abstract Calvin’s commentarial engagement with Acts makes an important contribution to understanding providence. This is, I argue, the case with respect to the important distinction between divine determination and divine permission. In this article, I unfold how the language of divine determination refers to what is true of God in a substantial sense. God’s determination reflects what God is in se. The language of permission, however, pertains only to evil. Such an inquiry advances systematic thinking on providence, encouraging recognition of how determination and permission have different referents. ‘Determination’ refers to what is of God, ‘permission’ to what is evil. The article also contributes to Calvin scholarship by showing how Calvin’s encounter with Acts generates a more expansive account of providential themes than one finds in the Institutes.

Human Striving and Absolute Reliance upon God: A Kierkegaardian Paradox

Abstract Kierkegaard’s texts suggest countervailing construals of the respective roles of divine and human agency in an individual’s pursuit of blessedness. Kierkegaard paradoxically suggests that the individual must depend entirely on grace for the birth and development of faith, and at the same time actively cultivate faithful dispositions and passions. But Kierkegaard did not espouse Calvinistic divine determinism, or Pelagian autonomous human agency, or the Arminian cooperation of the two. For Kierkegaard, the ostensible paradox of grace and free will is not a cognitive conundrum but is rather a challenge to integrate faith as a gift and faith as a task.

How the Cognitive Sciences Might Contribute to the Theological Debate about Free Will

AbstractThis article argues that recent results of the cognitive sciences could make significant contributions to theological debates about free will, but they have been largely ignored by contemporary systematic and philosophical theologians. Recent work in cognitive psychology and moral psychology has to do with our intuitive and automatic patterns of reasoning in the domains of freedom and responsibility. This research will be relevant for many theological domains and has the potential to raise new issues and problems. The essay examines three such domains. First, the debate between intellectualist and voluntarist accounts of the will have been central in theology. Recent findings suggest that intellectualist accounts of the will have more intuitions on their side than has been previously assumed. Second, theologians have debated whether belief in free will is central for moral and political life. This question was pertinent during the Reformation when many of the reformers either rejected free will or presented truncated accounts of it. Recent results from moral psychology suggest that belief in free will has significant pro‐social and altruistic effects. Finally, the possible compatibility of divine determinism and free will is crucial for theological debates about sin, grace and God’s providence. Recent psychological results point in the direction of affirming that while most humans have strong intuitions about the incompatibility of free will and divine determinism, these might be based on a false inference. Finally, some new counterintuitive challenges about the manipulativeness of God are raised against the divine determinist position.

Some Critical Reflections on al-Jāḥiẓ’s Notions of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ (Innate Dispositions)

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This study sheds some light on how the philosophical and theological beliefs of al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868), as a Muʿtazilite, influenced his literary views and opinions. Among these are the concepts of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ, which are frequently mentioned in his writings. The concepts of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ originally address philosophically related theological questions, which were extended to cover literary points. On the theological level, these concepts were used to support the Muʿtazilah’s interpretation of human free will viewed in light of their belief in the unicity and justice of God. The notions of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ arose out of the Muʿtazilah’s discussion of ‘generated acts’. Regarding the literary domain, al-Jāḥiẓ applied the concepts of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ to the interpretation of littérateur creativity and his literary production. The way al-Jāḥiẓ interpreted the notions of Ṭabʿ and Ṭibāʿ displays natural determinism disguised under Divine determinism.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Review of: Peter Furlong, The Challenges of Divine Determinism: A Philosophical Analysis

Review of: Peter Furlong, The Challenges of Divine Determinism: A Philosophical Analysis

Meno’s Paradox and First Principles in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

Abstract This article examines Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) epistemology and his understanding of syllogistic reasoning through a consideration of Meno’s paradox. It focuses on later works, namely, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, Kitāb al-Jabr, and al-Tafsīr al-kabīr as well as his treatment of the subject in al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī l-ḥikma. Informed by the theories of epistemology developed through the philosophical tradition of Meno’s paradox and first principles, Rāzī views all knowledge formed through syllogistic reasoning as dependent on axiomatic truths (al-badīhiyyāt), a concept with roots in both the philosophical and theological traditions. These first principles are formed immediately upon the presence of the requisite concepts in the mind, and thus comprise Rāzī’s implicit response to the paradox in that all subsequent knowledge does indeed require previous fundamental knowledge that is not sought nor acquired voluntarily. Finally, the article discusses a separate paradox implicit in Rāzī’s works, namely that he both asserts in sections treating divine determinism that no knowledge can in fact be acquired whatsoever while elsewhere emphasizing the fundamental importance of knowledge acquisition.

Neither Libertarian nor Compatibilist

Abstract The present essay addresses Paul Helm’s most recent attempt to assimilate the thought of such Reformed scholastics as Francis Turretin to the ‘compatibilism’ of Jonathan Edwards. Helm has misunderstood a series of important scholastic distinctions concerning the relationship of intellect and will in the older faculty psychology, and the relationship of foundational or, as I identified it, ‘root’ indifference in the will to its multiple potencies. He has, accordingly, failed to register how Reformed orthodox understandings of free choice outlined in recent scholarship affirm both a simultaneity or synchronicity of potencies or capacities of the will and a diachronicity of actual effects and events. The Reformed orthodox writers certainly thought that human freedom was not incompatible with the divine determination of all things—their resolution of the issue does not, however, coincide with modern compatibilism.

Divine Determinism and the Problem of Hell

Abstract Divine determinism, though affirmed by many Calvinists, implicates God in the decisions people make that ultimately damn them to the terrible destiny of hell. In this paper, the authors argue that this scenario is a problem for divine determinism. The article contends that determinism is inconsistent with God’s love and the Scriptures that explicitly state that God does not ‘desire’ anyone to go to hell. Even human love for others strongly suggests that God, who is ‘love’, will not determine anyone to hell. On the other extreme, those who argue for universalism, though appealing to Scripture, often do so with questionable exegesis.

Mere Molinism: A Defense of Two Essential Pillars

Abstract Molinism is founded on two ‘pillars’, namely, the view that human beings possess libertarian free will and the view that God has middle knowledge. Both these pillars stand in contrast to naturalistic determinism and divine determinism. In this article, however, the authors offer philosophical and theological grounds in favor of libertarian free will and middle knowledge.

Capitalism's Wishful Thinking

Abstract The magical orientalism that saturates Honoré de Balzac’s Peau de chagrin (1831), seemingly at odds with its author’s reputation for sociological realism, indicts the capitalist ambitions ushered in by France’s bourgeois July Monarchy. Balzac’s ironic orientalization of Paris demystifies the bildungsroman’s typically self-made protagonist by foregrounding how the probabilistic attribution of causal force to the human will resembles predestinarian belief in divine determination. The Eastern wish-fulfilling skin of Balzac’s title at once hyperbolizes the liberal fantasy of world-changing power and skeptically suggests that all aspirations to agency entail a leap of faith.

An Epistemological Analysis of] Predestination and Free-Will in John Milton's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost by John Milton is one of the most important literary works of the seventeenth century. In this epic in verse Milton, by displaying a portrait that combines Greek Mythology and Christian teachings, seeks to elucidate Divine Providence and man’s relation with God’s decree. He puts together Divine will-power and human determination to make the meaning understood of the Man’s Fall. Milton first adhered to Calvin’s school with regard to determinism and free will but afterward he turned to Arminianism. In Calvinism, it is believed that man’s fall has been registered in God’s eternal knowledge, that is, the Fall was to happen according to the will of God from the beginning. Therefore, both the prosperity and salvation of humankind are dependent upon God’s decision. However, in the Arminius’ school, it is believed that man is free and has authority to either accept or reject the Divine favor. From Milton’s viewpoint, predestination is God’s foreknowledge about the occurrence of events not about the creation of events. Consequently, if we consider man’s will-power on the basis of this belief of Milton, man may also become possessed of Divine decision (Divine will-power).

Moral Philosophy in the Qur’an From theViewpoint of the Risale-i Nur Said Nursi

The content of moral philosophy in Risale-i Nur Said Nursi which is derived from the Qur’an is abundant. This paper is an attempt to elaborate that moral philosophy of the Qur’an explained thoroughly in Risale-i Nur. The topics discussed here include the idea that evil is not fundamental to the world; it is only a means of knowing good, while men are the source of moral evil. In the Risale-i Nur, Nursi describes the hardships of his life in exile, the difficulties he suffered, and the distress he felt at the inhuman treatment meted out to his brothers, his country, and all humanity even. It is because what regarded as evil such as death is actually an instance of good and the gate of mercy. The plausible question is whether man is free to do and to desire something. For Nursi it is obvious that human freedom can be conducted only within the limits of divine determination. Nursi compares the wisdom of the Qur’an and that of philosophy, the training and education both offer to mankind. One of the things the Risale-i Nur teaches us is that what we suppose to be life is in reality only a small slice of time. Because for us, the past and future are non-existent and dead.